Last night Nintendo held its 2015 World Championships in Los Angeles. The last time Nintendo had a World Championships event was 25 years ago. And now we have a winner.
John Numbers went against world-record holding speedrunner Cosmo Wright and took the gold after navigating a viciously designed level of Super Mario Maker faster than his rival. It was a heated final round, and Numbers simply outplayed Wright. Both received an autographed New 3DS XL autographed by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, but Numbers took home the championship trophy marking him the first individual World Champion ever crowned by Nintendo (the 1990 event had winners in three separate age groups).
This year marked the 25th anniversary of the original 1990 World Championship, which toured almost 30 cities in the United States, one of the first video game competitions on a large scale.
The 2015 festivities, centered around the 2015 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), may have lacked that scope, but they certainly invoked the same kind of emotions as competitors dove into Nintendo’s long history of games, competing in titles from The Legend of Zelda to Mario Kart 8.
You can catch some of the action below, with the two finalists going at it in the insane final level.
